Insurers with better information will be able to judge risk better, so they can undercut competitors on lower risk or avoid taking on higher risk. That really is what a competitive insurance market should be like right?

Distribution is also a huge factor in who wins. You can have the best product, but if you can't get it out to enough people, whether direct to consumer or through agents, you're going to struggle. A lot of startups have focused on direct-to-consumer plays, but there's value in taking a hybrid approach to distribution and incorporating agents into your distribution strategy. It's surprising sometimes, for those of us with a tech background, to see how sticky human insurance agents have proven to be. I can make a better potato chip than Frito-Lay, but if I can’t get stores to stock it, it doesn’t matter how good it is.

Should be. But states like California cap insurance rates in such a way that insurers are dropping (non-renewing) policies, since they can't charge market rates.

Or is it about risk? Those places have a fair few large disasters, and one is sinking while denying it.

Now you frame this like I am too high risk or people in this capacity are too high risk, but that is the whole problem. Insurance cos are inconsistently making these determinations and the state's governance is directly responsible for the lack of regulation and enforcement. Nothing in my area has changed, but the insurance company has enacted the equivalent of ex post facto evaluation due to the state of CA. As example, my roof in great condition, passed inspection when purchase property a few years ago. I don't have certificates or invoices for repairs done to it in the 50 years of my home's life because I've only owned the property for a few years. The insurance company canceled my insurance stating I refused to provide such an invoice. They also claimed I'm now in a dangerous fire zone (I'm not) which I wasn't a year ago. They also claimed to need invoice of repairs for my plumbing, which again, is in wonderful condition. They stated simply providing inspection receipts wouldn't cut it and expensive certificates were needed. Anyways, I doubt you will read this but it's ridiculous and I'm not the only one in this state going through it.

The evidence I’d look for is something like their revenue vs payout over maybe the last 5 years?

I think a lot of this stuff can be very unintuitive, because we look around, and everything seems fine, and nothing seems to have changed, but they’re operating at a bulk statistical level, and their models revised on recent trends are probably telling them that they can’t profitably insure you for the amounts they’re allowed to charge. Some of that is that labor to rebuild/replacement cost has gotten much more expensive (we see that in our insurance rate changes despite being in an area with very little catastrophic risk).

And CA politicians’ response is probably some crowd pleasing but ultimately harmful “you can’t profiteer off our people, you’re not allowed to raise rates more than 3%” or something. So the only winning move becomes not to play except in the areas where you can make that work.

It does sound like they were just trying to find a way that they could cancel your policy without getting in trouble with the state insurance commission, though I don’t know enough about insurance to say if/why they’d need to.

The solution was to complain vociferously to the folks that maintained data sources. In those days it was Google, someone else, and it turned out the remainder of the defective commercial products were put out by a predecessor of, I think, the folks who eventually published or supplied the data for HERE We Go. Basically, every few months I would call them or write messages to them, social engineering who might be in a position to fix it. They did respond pretty quickly, for a bigcorp, but it took a few years for the prior versions of their database to cycle out of usage.

(The federal government, for mostly historical reasons, does not generally regulate insurance except for health insurance, and that only started with Obamacare. So each state has its own DOI, and agents and carriers have to get licensed in each state. It's a dumb, byzantine system going back to Paul v. Virginia in 1869, when the Supreme Court ruled that issuing a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce. I don't think that reasoning applies today, but Congress has specifically exempted insurance from things like anti-trust legislation since then. Sweeping insurance under federal regulation would, in theory, cause a giant mess since there's so much law and process built around the current state-by-state system. IMO it would be worth it because the current system is completely ridiculous, but so it goes.)

I think that is very reasonable law: If n organisation makes decision about your relations, you should be able to force them to process correct information.

(I have used that clause ones, when a bank wrongly reported that I had an open account of a certain type, which resultet in that I could not open that type of account at another bank.)

For example the insurance company had the correct address for the person (no need to correct) but the wrong information about the ___location of the address.

I worked it for a year and was unsuccessful in removing it. Ironically, my wife passed away but the accident is now associated with her car. They did figure out however, that I’m no longer eligible for a multi-driver discount.

That is some breathtaking hubris.